Burning Bright
by CallyCat63
Summary: Even as he roams the Dark Forest, Tigerstar can't seem to chase a certain tawny-colored loner from his mind.


_/Told from Tigerstar's POV/_

 _*Italicized lines are dialogue taken directly from the_ Sasha and Tigerstar _Mangas_

He thinks of her, sometimes.

The nights are long and lonely. The Dark Forest is barren and cold. The kind of cold that burns right through you.

He thinks of her and wonders how it all began.

He was on a patrol, scouting out the borders and testing the young Rowanpaw's skills. As he leaves, he hears something. A rustle or a creak, something so small he wouldn't have noticed it if he were a few mouse-lengths further up ahead. He looks toward the noise, upwards and hidden in a tree, tucked away behind leaves and branches, is the sharp glint of two eyes.

Tigerstar didn't know why but he found himself entrapped by those eyes, staring down at him from the sky, glittering like the eyes of a StarClan warrior. He didn't care much for StarClan. They had given him his lives but the thought that many of those stars upon Silverpelt had been put up their by his own paw was...terrifying.

Tigerstar doesn't like to be scared.

He dreamt of those eyes and when he awoke he washed his paws, licking away at the phantom taste of blood.

He goes back to the tree later, on another hunting patrol. He's not scared. He's not scared of anything.

The unexpected happens. The eyes don't belong to StarClan. Instead, it's just a rogue. A beautiful rogue who leaped down upon the prey of three brawny warriors. A beautiful, brave rogue. He sends his Clanmates away. He's never met a rogue so brave. She blinks up at him, expectant and poised.

He's never met a rogue so beautiful.

She's clueless, Togerstar learns. She knows nothing of the Clans or of hunger. It wasn't bravery that drove her from the tree, but foolishness.

And yet...

 _"Listen...if_ _you meet one of my border patrols, be careful._ _Ask for Tigerstar if they give you any trouble."_ She's prepared to leave. Her muscles ripple in the sun. If it weren't for the scent on her pelt, he would have assumed her a Clan cat.

 _"And what's your name?"_

 _"Sasha."_

Sasha. The name weaves through him. He thinks of her throughout the day. He wants to know her, he realizes. He wants to know where she came from and what she was doing now. Why, he didn't know. Why his paws wander back across the border, he couldn't say.

He doesn't need to sniff hard to locate her scent. He infects the clean forest air like she has infected his mind, plaguing it of thoughts of her. He waits and catches a rabbit that runs straight right past her.

" _I think this slipped through your paws."_ She's looking at him like medicine cats look to stars, disbelieving and hopeful. It makes him feel powerful. He corrects her and she takes it, matching the heat in his words instead of bowing down like Goldenflower always used to. It used to be his favorite thing about her but even the greatest of warriors come to realize the boredom in starting fights you know you'll win.

She is teasing and feisty, setting fire beneath his pelt. She looks even lovelier in starlight. He's never felt this in such a way before. The high he felt beside her was the rush that came with victory, battles, and bloodshed not from chatting calmly with a pretty she-cat.

He has to know her.

" _May I see you again?"_

There's a beauty to her, not only in appearance but in other things to. She treated his word as fact and gave him complete trust. It was...sweet.

They spend their nights together.

There are so many nights together.

There are nights beneath the stars and the moon. Nights where, for the first time since Readtail's death he can speak of StarClan in the way his mother used to soak of it when they were kits. He hunts for her and teaches her but even then he wants more, more of her.

He wants more of her laughter and innocence and more of the way he looks at him. No one's every looked at him like that. Even his Clanmates, over whom he was leader, didn't look at him like that, like he was king.

He needs it and craves her so one night he means to surprise her. He goes to her den, the one place they never seemed to go with each other, and waited. He laid down but something caught his eye, shining like a star or an omen. It's a collar. A filthy, stinking Twoleg collar.

She's a kittypet.

She's scum of the earth.

She's worse than Crowfood.

But then she appears, like a walking dream, stunning and sad. He doesn't hate her. He should. He thinks of his father, the pathetic, spineless piece of fox-dung who left behind his Clan for Twoleg slop and a patch of sunlight. He though of his mother, shaking in the dark and of her nightmares, always waking him, of the siblings whose faces he couldn't even recall. His father had been weak. He'd left his Clan and his mate and he'd left his only son.

Kittypets were worthless so why was Tigerstar still talking to her, still feeling for her? He gives her one more chance. One chance to turn her back on it all, to treat her old life like the dirt it is but she proves again how naive she truly is.

How could he have been so stupid.

He tries to forget her. He busies himself and tried to feel powerful and strong instead of the runt of the litter, crying for his mother to close her eyes and go back to bed.

He doesn't sleep well.

When he wakes, he longs for something to sink his teeth into. He needs real fresh-kill instead of the leather-skinned muck ShadowClan cats sometimes dared to eat. He picks up a bird, a pigeon, and Sasha's sweet scent fills his mouth.

"Where did you get this?" He asks a fellow Clanmate. They explain it was left at the border, rogue smell all over it.

He leaves immediately. He needs to see her.

When he finally tracks her down, she's facing two foxes all on her own. He should leave her to die. Death by these beasts is mercy. It'd be the warrior's death a kittypet doesn't deserve.

He can't, though, and he flies to her rescue. Only, instead of fleeing like he growls at her too, she fights beside him, matching ever swipe and nip of his tooth and claw.

She's not a kittypet.

She can't be.

Kittypets don't fight like that.

She leads him back to her den, he's bleeding and weak. He hates feeling weak, but beneath her gentle touch it somehow isn't nearly as bad. She cleans him and thanks him. Even battered, he feels strong beside her. He asks her if she's at least a half-Clan. He has to know. Kittypets can't fight like that. She says no but Tigerstar's already made up his mind.

Kittypets can't fight like that.

He needs to see her again. He makes her promise to never tell anyway about her kittypet roots. She shows him her old haunts. He pays little attention to the fences and streets and Twoleg dens they pass. She's not a kittypet. This is not her home.

He shows her a better place, a place beneath the stars. It's a beautiful place. ShadowClan camp seems to suit her. He wishes he could show her ThunderClan camp but those days have wilted and shriveled. Maybe one day, he'll show her the nursery where he was born. The day when he rules the forest.

She stays in the warriors den that night.

He knew she wasn't a kittypet.

She gets along well with his Clanmates and even keeps up with the patrol. He's proud of her. He wants this and them. He pictures her, swollen with kits, by his side as he governs the Clans with an iron fist. She'd be proud of him too, he thinks. He's going to ask her to join ShadowClan that night. He thinks that she'll say yes.

Everything falls apart.

He comes from a meeting of great importance to ask for Sasha to join him. She rejects him. She calls him a murder and a traitor. She heard his meeting and she didn't understand. She was blind to the necessity of it and he'd been blinded to her blindness. He tries to explain but she refuses to see reason. She can't see how him ruling the first would be good for every cat and how it would be good for them.

" _You would be beside me. Every cat would fear us."_

He's begging her. He's never begged before but he's allowing himself this one moment of bunt ability if it means Sasha by his side.

" _I don't want to be feared! I want to be loved, and I thought you loved me."_

" _I do love you."_ He says it, aloud for all the world to hear but it's too late now; Sasha's already turning away

Goes to show what vulnerability gets you.

What weakness gets you.

" _Now you will always be nothing."_ He pass away on the pieces of a shattered dream.

Weakness gets you hurt.

He carries that lesson with him. He'd let it go before to pursue Sasha but he keeps it close to him afterwards. He carries it with him as thorn-sharp claws gut him. He carries it with him through The Dark Forest as he wanders.

He carries it with him when he thinks of her.

And he so often thinks of her.

 **This was supposed to be a character study coupled with reasoning behind why Tigerstar ended up with a rogue. I adore Sasha. If you haven't read her manga you totally should. It's one of the best.**

 **Isn't it sweet when your boyfriend offers to destroy all your enemies for you? Daww.**

 **I picture Tigerstar with an obsessive personality and huge vulnerability issues. This comes from his father, Pinestar, who left ThunderClan to become a kittypet. Leopardfoot always told Tigerstar that his father was weak and he grew up with the whole Clan whispering that behind his back. It was this that led him to becoming obsessed with power. He can't stand the idea of weakness and he has no sense of empathy which means he'll never feel true love.**

 **He came close with Sasha and though Sasha truly loved him, seeing the brave and ambitious warrior beneath, Tigerstar never could give it all to her. Tigerstar loved Sasha for her ability to be both strong and weak. She was strong it that she never minded being weak. Tigerstar always secretly envied that. He was also extremely physically attracted to her and got a rush off of the fact that Sasha had real feelings for him. It made him feel powerful. When he finds out Sasha is a kittypet he hates her, because kittypets remind him of his father, and can't bring himself to care about her again until he denies it all by completely ignoring the facts and going with the good ole if I say it enough it'll be true.**

 **Thanks for reading!**


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